DCLMan
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- May 31, 2008
- Messages
- 646
This is not a good and bad thread about our holiday to Orlando, as there really aren't any bad things about a holiday to WDW but just a few observations about our trip.
We flew from Gatwick with Virgin on the 20/08/12 on VS27 on a refurbished plane (Barbaralla). The new planes are great, the touch screen IFE work well and the selection of movies was superb. The meals were tasty, and they had enough drinks to last the flight (unlike the last time we flew with Virgin in 2010). The cabin crew were 3 flights attendants short but it didn't seem to affect the service. However we didn't received the much hyped (by Virgin) cocktail.
Immigration at MCO was appalling. It took nearly 2 hours to get through. There were 8 desks open, out of 24ish. We were regretting even holidaying in America whilst queueing, it really is off putting when you are treated like that.
Alamo car hire was breeze with the online check in. Simple walk to the garage, choose your car and drive to the exit.
We stayed at the Hawthorn Suites, Palm Parkway, LBV. It was easy to find and a nice setting. The check in process was easy and Luis, the reception manger was lovely. The hotel has suites and we had 2 twin beds and a queen sofa beds so the 4 of us had plenty of space. The kitchen was huge with a big fridge, dishwasher, microwave, 2 burner hob, coffee maker and plenty of cupboards and utensils. The free wifi was good in all areas of the hotel including outside and round the pool. It was running at 6.2Mbps. We had an included breakfast, 3 hot items, bread, doughnuts, bagels, cereals, juice, porridge, yogurt, coffee, tea and fruit. There was plenty of seating.
Monday to Thursday evenings was Manager's drinks and snack, beer and wine and soft drinks and 2 types of crisps or pretzels or popcorn. On a Thursday they did burgers in buns.
The pool area included a hot tub, a basketball court and bar-b-q's.
We loved LBV, some much better than I Drive. Close to Disney and if you catch the traffic lights right we were at DTD in 5 minutes.
I would highly recommend this hotel.
Eating out in Orlando is always good and we tried some new places this year. Miller's Ale House was a new favourite. It had everything we wanted. Cheap beer and wine, good vegetarian options and plenty of televisions showing sport.
Pei Wei on Turkey Lake Road was also good.
Another good find was TooJays Deli. We went to the one near Altamonte Springs Mall. It was a proper sandwich shop used by local people. The portions were a good size and reasonably priced.
We also ate at Olive Garden and Cici's Pizza. Both were OK, neither good or bad.
Shopping was hit and miss. I found the Malls to be expensive. We went to Premium, Florida Mall, Orlando Premium Outlets - International Dr and Altamonte Springs Mall. The outlet malls seem to have raised their prices quite a bit, but Altamonte did have some good deals. A and F, Hollister and Echo had some really good deals and coupons.
The Parks.
We had 14 day Ultimate Disney tickets and Discovery Cove with Busch Gardens.
The Disney parks were great and we used www.easywdw.com plans to tour the parks. These worked very well.
The parks all looked clean and the halloween decorations in MK started to go up the second week we were there. Fantasyland in MK will be great when it's finished but it does constrict traffic flow, especially outside It's a small world. I do wish Disney would clean their bathrooms more often and clean up the smoking areas.
We loved the new Star Tours ride in DHS, much better than the old film.
We went to both Disney water parks and BB is so much better laid out than TL.
We only managed one day at Busch as it was closed the first day we planned to visit due to TS Isaac. We used the free transport from Publix and it was nice not having having to drive. The bus picked us up at 9.30am and we got to the park at 11am. It picked us up at 6pm, at park closing. Busch was very quiet, I walked on to most of the roller coasters and we saw plenty of animals.
We went to Discovery Cove on Sunday 2nd September, it was good and the new additions (Grand Reef and Fresh Water Oasis) were fun. The salt water in the Grand Reef was cold, I could only manage 1 lap before getting out to warm up. Wether it was because it was Labour Day weekend but it did seem busy. There were long queues at the restaurant and the bars. The pools were crowed and the number of times we were kicked by people swimming by were a lot. The bars did run out of drinks and didn't have the frozen cocktails ready till late afternoon. They also removed the snacks quite early. I also found the quality and number of photos were poor compared to our previous visit. I don't think I would pay the premium price again, but I do think it is a good day and worth doing.
Labour Day weekend was very busy with lots of people at the parks and DTD.
TS Isaac dumped a lot of rain on Monday 27 August. We tried to go to MK and managed 2 hours before our kids were soaked and fed up. The park was very quiet and if it had just been us adults we would have stayed, but we went back to the hotel and then went shopping. The weather in general was lovely, hot and low humidity. The last week after Isaac was even better, we didn't have any rain for days.
We flew home on Monday 3rd September on VS027. It was delayed by an hour. We had checked in on line the night before, reserved our seats and printed our boarding cards. When we got to DTD check in we were told that the planes had changed and therefore our seats had to be moved. So what is the point of OLCI?
The plane was an old one and boy was it showing it's age. The IFE was terrible but the food wasn't bad. We still didn't get the Virgin cocktail. Food and drink service was slow and Virgin cabin crew, if I have an eye mask on and I'm not moving, please don't wake me up to ask if I want duty free!
We were very sad to leave as we had a lovely holiday. We will not be returning in 2013 as we are cruising round the Med but are planning on 2014. I think we will try landing in Tampa next time and spend some time on the Gulf coast.
Dom
We flew from Gatwick with Virgin on the 20/08/12 on VS27 on a refurbished plane (Barbaralla). The new planes are great, the touch screen IFE work well and the selection of movies was superb. The meals were tasty, and they had enough drinks to last the flight (unlike the last time we flew with Virgin in 2010). The cabin crew were 3 flights attendants short but it didn't seem to affect the service. However we didn't received the much hyped (by Virgin) cocktail.
Immigration at MCO was appalling. It took nearly 2 hours to get through. There were 8 desks open, out of 24ish. We were regretting even holidaying in America whilst queueing, it really is off putting when you are treated like that.
Alamo car hire was breeze with the online check in. Simple walk to the garage, choose your car and drive to the exit.
We stayed at the Hawthorn Suites, Palm Parkway, LBV. It was easy to find and a nice setting. The check in process was easy and Luis, the reception manger was lovely. The hotel has suites and we had 2 twin beds and a queen sofa beds so the 4 of us had plenty of space. The kitchen was huge with a big fridge, dishwasher, microwave, 2 burner hob, coffee maker and plenty of cupboards and utensils. The free wifi was good in all areas of the hotel including outside and round the pool. It was running at 6.2Mbps. We had an included breakfast, 3 hot items, bread, doughnuts, bagels, cereals, juice, porridge, yogurt, coffee, tea and fruit. There was plenty of seating.
Monday to Thursday evenings was Manager's drinks and snack, beer and wine and soft drinks and 2 types of crisps or pretzels or popcorn. On a Thursday they did burgers in buns.
The pool area included a hot tub, a basketball court and bar-b-q's.
We loved LBV, some much better than I Drive. Close to Disney and if you catch the traffic lights right we were at DTD in 5 minutes.
I would highly recommend this hotel.
Eating out in Orlando is always good and we tried some new places this year. Miller's Ale House was a new favourite. It had everything we wanted. Cheap beer and wine, good vegetarian options and plenty of televisions showing sport.
Pei Wei on Turkey Lake Road was also good.
Another good find was TooJays Deli. We went to the one near Altamonte Springs Mall. It was a proper sandwich shop used by local people. The portions were a good size and reasonably priced.
We also ate at Olive Garden and Cici's Pizza. Both were OK, neither good or bad.
Shopping was hit and miss. I found the Malls to be expensive. We went to Premium, Florida Mall, Orlando Premium Outlets - International Dr and Altamonte Springs Mall. The outlet malls seem to have raised their prices quite a bit, but Altamonte did have some good deals. A and F, Hollister and Echo had some really good deals and coupons.
The Parks.
We had 14 day Ultimate Disney tickets and Discovery Cove with Busch Gardens.
The Disney parks were great and we used www.easywdw.com plans to tour the parks. These worked very well.
The parks all looked clean and the halloween decorations in MK started to go up the second week we were there. Fantasyland in MK will be great when it's finished but it does constrict traffic flow, especially outside It's a small world. I do wish Disney would clean their bathrooms more often and clean up the smoking areas.
We loved the new Star Tours ride in DHS, much better than the old film.
We went to both Disney water parks and BB is so much better laid out than TL.
We only managed one day at Busch as it was closed the first day we planned to visit due to TS Isaac. We used the free transport from Publix and it was nice not having having to drive. The bus picked us up at 9.30am and we got to the park at 11am. It picked us up at 6pm, at park closing. Busch was very quiet, I walked on to most of the roller coasters and we saw plenty of animals.
We went to Discovery Cove on Sunday 2nd September, it was good and the new additions (Grand Reef and Fresh Water Oasis) were fun. The salt water in the Grand Reef was cold, I could only manage 1 lap before getting out to warm up. Wether it was because it was Labour Day weekend but it did seem busy. There were long queues at the restaurant and the bars. The pools were crowed and the number of times we were kicked by people swimming by were a lot. The bars did run out of drinks and didn't have the frozen cocktails ready till late afternoon. They also removed the snacks quite early. I also found the quality and number of photos were poor compared to our previous visit. I don't think I would pay the premium price again, but I do think it is a good day and worth doing.
Labour Day weekend was very busy with lots of people at the parks and DTD.
TS Isaac dumped a lot of rain on Monday 27 August. We tried to go to MK and managed 2 hours before our kids were soaked and fed up. The park was very quiet and if it had just been us adults we would have stayed, but we went back to the hotel and then went shopping. The weather in general was lovely, hot and low humidity. The last week after Isaac was even better, we didn't have any rain for days.
We flew home on Monday 3rd September on VS027. It was delayed by an hour. We had checked in on line the night before, reserved our seats and printed our boarding cards. When we got to DTD check in we were told that the planes had changed and therefore our seats had to be moved. So what is the point of OLCI?
The plane was an old one and boy was it showing it's age. The IFE was terrible but the food wasn't bad. We still didn't get the Virgin cocktail. Food and drink service was slow and Virgin cabin crew, if I have an eye mask on and I'm not moving, please don't wake me up to ask if I want duty free!
We were very sad to leave as we had a lovely holiday. We will not be returning in 2013 as we are cruising round the Med but are planning on 2014. I think we will try landing in Tampa next time and spend some time on the Gulf coast.
Dom
